


Favreau for America

by speakingwosound (sev313)



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Canon Compliant, Coming Out, M/M, Political Campaigns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-23 21:02:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18709918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sev313/pseuds/speakingwosound
Summary: Lovett has all the experience to know that rumors swirling about confirmed bachelor presidential candidate Jon Favreau are not the same as a confirmed non-bachelor gay democratic candidate with a mostly-on but sometimes-off hookup deal with his head speech writer.





	Favreau for America

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justsomebozo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsomebozo/gifts).



> Written for FTH 2019. Thank you so much, Beka, for donating to a worthy cause and contributing to the fight through fic. I love this exchange and what it stands for and thank you, also, to the FTH organizers for all their hard work every year.
> 
> I hope you like this as much as I liked writing this!

Jon’s sleeping soundly when the first alarm goes off. Lovett reaches for his phone, turning it off as quickly as possible. Jon makes a soft noise and Lovett freezes with his legs halfway out of the comforte, but Jon just snuffles and rolls onto his side, reaching his hand into the warm indent Lovett’s leaving behind.

At the foot of the bed, Leo raises his head. Lovett makes a “shh” motion as he reaches for a threadbare Friend of the Pod sweatshirt and pulls it on over his bare chest. He roots around for the basketball shorts Jon had peeled off him the night before, stubbing his toe on the generic hotel armchair as he digs them out from under it.

He’s grateful that his headphones are still stuffed into the pocket, and he pulls them out, cueing up _The Daily_ as he slides into the bathroom and reaches for-

Fuck. He’d planned on spending the night in his own room, before Jon had spent the entire night looking at Lovett over the heads of ripe tech billionaires with purposefully smokey eyes. 

They'd made an even $3 million and Lovett hadn’t stood a chance.

He hesitates for another moment, then reaches for Jon’s toothbrush. It’s Jon’s fault he’s here, Jon can pay the consequences.

He rinses it before putting it back in the plastic cup holder and turns off the light before ducking out. The moonlight is still flitting through the crack in the curtains and Lovett takes a moment to long for what could be. In an alternate universe where a Tuesday morning could be spent in lazy repose. Where Lovett could wake Jon with a cup of steaming coffee and an early morning blowjob. Where they could both rush in, late, to a meeting with Tanya or the Square Cash, flushed more with the implication than the secrecy.

Where Lovett’s morning didn’t start at four am and Jon’s brow wasn’t so furrowed, even in sleep.

Lovett longs to cross the room, to run his fingers through Jon’s salt and pepper hair and press a kiss to his forehead. But his phone buzzes in his pocket and he sighs, reaching for the door handle and praying that Leo won’t follow as he slips out.

“There you are.”

Lovett freezes, the door clicking closed behind him, a little louder than he’d meant it to. He slides his headphones around his neck, Michael Barbaro’s voice tinny and low against his skin, and pastes on a smile. “Hi, Tommy. Good morning, Tommy.”

Tommy motions to Lovett’s headphones. “I texted you.”

“Okay,” Lovett says slowly. “Well, I’m here now. What’d it say?”

Tommy thumbs at his own phone and pulls up the calendar app that’s become the bane of Lovett’s existence. “We need to talk about this.”

Lovett sighs. He takes a moment to wish he’d taken the time to shower the sweat off him before he takes a step closer to read over Tommy’s shoulder. “Did I mix up Congresspeople Jones and Walker again?”

Tommy frowns. “Again?”

Lovett waves him away. “We caught it before it got to the News & Observer.”

The vein that’s been getting more and more prominent on Tommy’s forehead since the Convention threatens to jump off his forehead.

Lovett raises an eyebrow and directs its trajectory. “The calendar?”

“Right.” Tommy shakes himself. “You put ‘executive time’ on the Candidate’s calendar from 1-3pm?”

Lovett holds back the urge to roll his eyes so far back in his head that they might stick there. “Too soon?”

Tommy’s eyes narrow. The vein pulses. “The joke isn’t the problem. This is prime fundraising call hours.”

Lovett sighs as he thinks back to the Jon he left, bathed in moonlight and more grey hairs and creases then he’d had even six weeks ago. “There was a two hour break in the schedule, so, I took it.”

“It’s not a break anymore.”

Lovett shrugs. “That’s okay. Just thought I’d try to find some time to-”

“And,” Tommy continues, over and around him, “you can’t schedule sex with the Candidate on the master calendar.”

_Help Jon relax_ , Lovett finishes, in his head, before Tommy’s words land.

Lovett blinks. He’d figured-

Well, he’s not sure what he’d figured. They’ve been subtle, for the hundreds of new volunteers and low level employees Lovett’s still learning by name. They haven’t been subtle for Tommy, Jon’s best friend turned campaign manager. Lovett should have known that he knows.

It’s only impressive, in retrospective, that Tommy’s managed to keep the knowledge to himself this long.

“I scheduled,” Lovett says, slowly, “a trip to the Lemur Center on the master calendar. While in Raleigh, right?”

“While in Raleigh, the Candidate can call North Carolina's biggest donors,” Tommy corrects.

Lovett shrugs. “Can’t blame me for trying.”

“Try me.”

Lovett sighs. “I’d really rather not and, if you’re done? There’s a treadmill with my name on it.”

Tommy waves him away, already buried back into his phone. “Send me the Duke clean energy speech when it’s done.”

“By ten,” Lovett promises, already walking backwards. “And, just for the record, I don’t need to schedule my sex. Jon does it just fine for me.”

Tommy flushes red under the artificial hotel hallway lights.

Lovett takes a moment of satisfaction, before his mind shifts over to the energy speech. He pulls out his phone to restart his podcast and heads for the elevator.

He has a long day ahead.

***

“Healthcare is an inalienable right.”

The crowd roars with applause, drowning out the next line, but Lovett mouths it along with Jon, knowing the inflections from Jon’s gesticulations and two months of the stump.

It might be about time, Lovett thinks, to update the healthcare section. Not that Ali from Arkansas’ story isn’t great, but variation would be good for the news cycle and for Jon’s ability to empathize with a story he repeats three or four times a day. Besides, Alyssa’s been sending Lovett an increasingly extreme series of examples out of her NARAL research.

Lovett’s shifting through their group chat, searching for the perfect one, when Elijah groans next to him. “Guess I better get this one. IG loves when he gets sentimental.”

“What?” Lovett asks, looking up just in time to catch Jon smiling softly at a young woman in a _FotP_ t-shirt and a UNC hat, the Q and A microphone clasped in her hands.

“I’ve told this story before, but, there were two candidates for an opening on the speechwriting team.”

Elijah holds up his camera, zooming in so he can capture the look on Jon’s face, even under his sunglasses, and the way he moves his hands as he tells this story for the upteenth time. At least, Lovett figures, Elijah isn’t capturing _him_ , because no matter how many times Jon tells it, the story still flitters through Lovett’s chest like validation for the path Jon had set them both on so many years ago on that cold fall morning, sitting at the Starbucks on P, exchanging nerve-fueled jokes and what Lovett now knows were infatuation-fueled laughs.

If only it hadn’t taken Jon fifteen years and a run for President to act on it. The irony isn’t lost on Lovett that their fledgling romance - if _romance_ is even applicable to a one-nighter that has extended for fourteen months in time but not in emotional development - is on the opposite trajectory to Jon’s steadily rising presidential campaign.

An Electoral College victory would be the death knell to whatever the fuck he and Jon have been building. And as Jon’s stock has climbed through the polls as they enact Dan’s twelve-point communication’s plan and Alyssa’s daily multi-state strategy, Lovett’s place at Jon’s side has slipped just as steadily into obscurity.

Lovett wishes things were different. The polling suggests that the country - scratch that, the parts of the country on Jon’s path to victory - will support a gay candidate, but Lovett stopped trusting polling long before November of 2016. Lovett has all the experience to know that rumors swirling about confirmed bachelor presidential candidate Jon Favreau are not the same as a confirmed non-bachelor gay democratic candidate with a mostly-on but sometimes-off hookup deal with his head speech writer.

Lovett chuckles to himself at the pollsters writing _that_ question, and ignores Elijah’s annoyed noise at Lovett interrupting the purity of his video.

“The other candidate was great,” Jon’s saying. “He would have been a solid addition to the team. But then I met with Lovett and I laughed for thirty minutes straight.”

Lovett tells his traitorous heart to _cut it out_.

“So I interviewed someone who worked with him and they were like, ‘well, Lovett has real highs but he can also be, you know, a little bit to deal with.’ And I was like, ‘sold! That’s who I want.’ We worked together for three years in the White House, founded a company together, and he’s one of the most important members of my campaign. I haven’t regretted if for a day.”

Elijah stops filming and uploads the video to their campaign IG and forwards it to Tanya in case she wants to upload it to the Crooked account as well.

Lovett screencaps the place he’d scrolled back to in his chat with Alyssa and pockets his phone so he can meet Jon at the bottom of the stairs as he jogs down. The moment he crosses the barrier and gets past the eyes of the adoring crowd, he drops the cheerful smile and slides into the tired expression he’s been wearing since he woke up that morning, tired and cranky and with the beginnings of a cold.

Lovett had screencapped the _bed was cold when I woke up_ text Jon had sent, accompanied by a sad-faced emoji, before he’d deleted it.

Now, though, Jon just meets him and Tommy with a raised palm. “I know, I know, I wasn’t emotive enough in the healthcare section and I let the Q and A drag on for too long.”

Tommy chuckles and taps his iPad. “We’ve made a change to the schedule. Elijah’s added a Reddit AMA. It starts in a few moments.”

Jon nods. His hair looks impossibly greyer than it did when Lovett let him in bed that morning, and his nose is a little red from the kleenex sticking out of his pocket.

Lovett wants to reach out, shove it back into Jon’s pocket, let his hand linger a little, but he distracts himself with flipping his phone between his fingers. “I think I have a solution for the healthcare section.”

Jon raises an eyebrow. “I think I saw cold cuts backstage, since Elijah’s so nicely traded in my lunch hour. Walk with me?”

Lovett snorts as he slides into step with Jon. “An hour? Your optimism never ceases to amaze me.”

Jon snorts. “Fifteen minutes. An hour. It’s all the same, since we entered whatever timeless vortex this campaign lives on.”

Lovett laughs as he pulls up his phone. “A wormhole would be incredibly nice right now.”

Jon raises an eyebrow and turns left, past the craft services tables and down the back of the bleachers. “What would be at the end of this wormhole?”

Lovett shrugs, glancing around them. It’s shady here, under the scaffolding, and there isn’t a reporter in sight. Lovett steps forward. “An alien spa, with some palm trees, definitely some fruity drinks with little umbrellas, and not a single person in sight who knows either of our names.”

“Yeah?” Jon flushes, raising an eyebrow as he closes the distance between them and brackets Lovett between his arms. “That sounds like a dream.”

“Yeah?” Lovett asks, to needle Jon and that voice that sits, always, in the back of his own head, reminding him that this whole thing is ridiculous and impossible and unsustainable.

“Weren’t you listening to my Q and A?” Jon asks, ducking his head. “I was sold in thirty minutes.”

“Fuck,” Lovett says, out loud and internally. He raises on his tiptoes and pulls Jon towards him, his hands on either side of Jon’s head.

Jon whimpers into the kiss, his whole body pushing into it. His lips taste like the coffee he lives on these days and the toothpaste Lovett had borrowed that morning. He smells like sweat and the sunscreen his PR team makes him wear. He kisses like Lovett has always dreamed he would, with every inch of his famous attention, like Lovett is the only person in the world.

Lovett pulls back, gasping for breath. He runs his fingers through Jon's hair to straighten it. “Alyssa really does have some good ideas for the healthcare section.”

Jon chuckles, running his finger down Lovett’s cheek before pulling back. He adjusts his suit pants, his cheeks red and flushed and his eyes the darkest brown.

Lovett did that. Lovett will never get sick of knocking Jon off his axis.

“Tell me about it as we eat?” Jon asks, nodding back towards the craft services table, where the press and their staff are waiting, cameras and Twitter fingers ready.

Lovett nods, pulling up Alyssa’s messages as he falls into step.

***

Lovett makes the rounds, extracting promises for maximum donations - and an ethically questionable promise for Lyft ads for Crooked that he has to remember to tell Tanya to turn down - from the tech moguls and energy entrepreneurs composing their last North Carolina fundraiser of the quarter. 

He's pretty sure, though, that he's outlived his fundraising usefulness, and he camps out next to the oyster bar. His phone is open, the stump speech bathing his face in artificial light, as he contemplates the stories Alyssa had sent.

“Here.” Jon settles next to him, handing over a small plate of oysters, dressed just the way Lovett likes them. “I hear oysters are aphrodisiacs.”

Lovett chokes, almost dropping his phone as he takes the plate. He does drop something that was clinging to the bottom of the plate and he frowns as he kneels down to retrieve it. “What is-? Oh.”

He flushes as he pockets Jon's plastic room key and straightens.

“Or it might just be a rumor,” Jon shrugs, like he's James Bond and not the worst presidential candidate to undertake an affair in the past few decades.

Lovett laughs and catches Jon's eye as he lifts one of the shells. “I think we need some scientific evidence, either way.”

Jon winks and doesn't look away as Lovett downs the oyster. “My thoughts exactly.”

Jon's bowtie is loose and his shirt's a little rumbled under his jacket. Lovett reaches for the second oyster rather than reaching out to straighten him. “How's fundraising going?”

“Tommy says we're meeting our goals.” Jon shrugs, crossing his arms across his chest. “No thanks to me. I got five minutes into restructuring the FCC before I realized I was talking to _Reed Hastings_.”

Lovett stifles a laugh. “You're the worst. How have we gotten this far?”

“God only knows,” Jon chuckles. He uncurls his arms and drops them to his sides, his fingers brushing against Lovett's hip. “Alyssa said you're revisiting the healthcare section?”

Lovett nods.

“Can I-?”

Tommy catches his eye across the room, nodding towards the generic guy in a black hoodie he's cornered. Lovett pockets his phone and straightens. “Nope. Duty calls, and your duty now is to look pretty and fake smart. Try to remember that you're the one who chose this path.”

Jon sighs and pushes back from the table. “I have useful skills.”

“In fundraising, yep,” Lovett nods, pushing him towards Tommy. “Try to look interested.”

Jon glares at him as he goes. Lovett laughs, thumbing the key in his pocket, before pulling his phone out of his pocket again.

***

Lovett’s deep into the speech when there’s a knock on the door. He surfaces slowly, wondering if he’d gotten so engrossed that he missed senior staff, but his laptop tells him that it’s still pre-dawn. Pundit backs up the hypothesis as she huffs and rolls over in bed, curling her neck over Leo’s.

Lovett rolls his eyes at her and the lump of Jon’s still-sleeping form when there’s a second knock.

Shit. Lovett really should have taken his insomnia and his dog back to his room when he’d woken up. Now, he bites his lip and considers hiding in the closet, but it’s more Pundit’s general disapproval of locked doors and less the uncomfortable sense of irony that has him still standing, undecided, at the third knock.

“It’s me,” Tommy’s voice comes through the door. It sounds scratchy, like he’s just woken up, and heavy, like he’s already lived an entire day in the few minutes he’s been awake.

Lovett sighs and changes course, bypassing the closet and pulling open the door. He doesn’t have time to regret the campaign hoodie he’d pulled on over the over-large sweatpants he’d pulled off of Jon’s hotel room floor as Tommy pushes past him, Dan hot on his heels.

Lovett flinches, but Dan doesn’t look too surprised to see Jon still sleeping or both dogs twisted into the warm space Lovett had left behind. Lovett tries, anyway, to come up with an excuse. “I was reworking the stump, you know, the healthcare section, I told you about it yesterday, but, when I got here-”

“This is the morning’s paper,” Tommy interrupts, rescuing him and shoving his tablet into Lovett’s hands.

Lovett trails off, almost grateful for whatever scandal is awaiting him on the iPad. He has no idea how he was going to end that sentence. _When I got here, Jon was still asleep_ is both obvious and nonsensical. _When I got here, Jon was already awake, but then I bored him to sleep again with talk of healthcare_ is not too far off from the truth. It doesn’t explain, though, the pile of Lovett’s best suit pants and striped underwear strill crumpled next to the bed.

“We offered them a one-on-one sit down,” Dan shrugs, breaking through Lovett’s thoughts. “It’ll hold them off for a few hours. A day, at most. And Elijah’s tracking down the photographer-”

“What photographer?” Lovett asks, finally looking down and-

“- he’s authorized to offer everything but the kitchen sink-” Dan continues.

“I could be persuaded on the kitchen sink,” Tommy shrugs.

Dan laughs a little, but it sounds bubbly and fish-bowled through the blood rushing in Lovett’s ears. “I don’t know that any of it will stick, though, and even if it does, someone’s gonna get it from the Cloud or something. Both our supporters and our detractors are enterprising Twitter users.”

Lovett’s having a hard time piecing together everything between _sink_ and _Cloud_ and _Twitter_. He’s pretty sure Tommy huffs out a response - an order? Probably an order, Tommy’s really taken the whole Chief of Staff title pretty seriously - but Lovett can’t spare the extra senses to listen when everything he has is focused on the image staring back at him on the tablet.

Lovett recognizes the bleachers behind the stage from yesterday. He remembers how Jon had smelled, like sweat and adrenaline and too many cups of coffee and not nearly enough toothpaste. He remembers how the crowd had sounded, distant and hollow. He remembers how Jon had laughed, soft and warm, against Lovett’s mouth. He remembers checking for the press before he pulled Jon in. He remembers- “I checked. I looked. No one was there.”

Dan shrugs and digs his hands into his pockets. “They’re good these days. Telephoto lenses and all that.”

“Fuck.” Lovett looks back at the photo. The headline reads _Scandal of Presidential Proportions for Democrats?_ “Fuck.”

Tommy leans over his shoulder, even though he must have looked over every inch of the photo in the past twenty minutes. Tommy's fingers are even paler than usual as he zooms in, focusing in on where Lovett’s hands are cradling Jon’s cheeks. Or, what are Jon’s cheeks to someone who’s been kissing him for the better part of a year, but, what are, for even the more-than-lay person, pixelated skin that is undeniably male but deniably anything else.

“Yeah,” Tommy breathes, close enough to leave goosebumps on Lovett’s neck. “Deniability.”

The hope in Tommy’s voice is expected, the pinch in Lovett’s chest is not. He always knew this is where they were headed. Jon is a candidate for _President of the United States_ , and Lovett is an entry - a few entries, if he’s lucky - in Jon’s burn book. Lovett is a liability. Lovett is a rumor made manifest. His very existence - and the hundreds of hours of tape of comedian-turned-pundit Lovett taking the piss out of their opponents - could fill a chapter in the Republicans’ opposition research and it’s only sheer, dumb luck that they haven’t had to use the escape hatch long before now.

Lovett nods. “Small favors,” he agrees, the words sticking to his throat as he zooms out again, to the bleachers and the cloudless blue sky and to Lovett’s body, angled just right. Just right to hide everything Jon is and nothing Lovett is. Because, fuck, Lovett can see a decade and a half of affection in the curve of his mouth and the tilt of his head and the wrinkles on his hands. The picture strips him of all the shreds of deniability he has left, just like Tommy said.

A small price to pay, he figures, for Jon’s.

He shuts down the tablet and hands it back to Tommy. “What do I have to do?”

Dan intercepts the tablet and squeezes Lovett’s shoulder as he steps around them. He’s frowning more, Lovett hopes, from the PR disaster they’ve dropped in his lap than the underlying secrets Lovett had kind of assumed they hadn’t ever been keeping all that secret. Not from Dan.

“I think,” Dan says, slowly, “that that’s a question for the Candidate.”

***

“We’re here with Jon Favreau, presidential candidate. Welcome to WPTF, Raleigh's number one source for news and talk. Thank you for sitting down and talking to us today.”

“Thank you for having me.” Jon crosses his long legs and leans back in his chair. His pants pull at the knees and Lovett can just see the rainbow socks he’d pulled on in protest that morning. His voice sounds nasally and there's a balled up kleenex clenched in his hand.

Lovett spares a moment to wonder how he can keep falling for Jon, day after day, this many years on, and another to thank whatever gods might be listening that neither of their hosts are looking at Jon's feet.

“You’ve had quite a couple days here in Raleigh. We hear you went to the BBQ competition a couple days ago. Did you like the vinegar or the mustard better?”

“I know better than to fall for that trap,” Jon laughs. He leans forward on his elbows so that his mouth is close enough to the mic. Even with red-rimmed eyes, he looks natural here, behind a podcast desk again. “All BBQ sauces are created equally.”

Their host laughs. She brushes a strand of hair behind her ear, a reminder Lovett didn’t need that they’re also streaming this, raw and unedited, live across YouTube. Tommy had tried to get them a 15 second delay - enough time to cut anything particularly egregious - but WPTF had insisted and Dan had thrown about words like “authentic” and “credibility” and Jon had agreed with the same huff and glare he’s been giving all of them all day.

“I know, I know.” Jon blushes, self-deprecating. “I can see the headlines now.” He raises his hands in the shape of a banner. “ _Democratic Candidate Wishy-Washy on BBQ. How can we expect him to make a decision on the nuclear football?_ ”

Next to Lovett, Dan snorts. “He learned that from you.”

Lovett raises his hand to his chest. “From me? Don’t accept the premise of the question, that’s what I say.”

“That's what I say.” Dan meets Lovett’s hand with a raised eyebrow. “‘Reframe the question with humor before it’s even been asked’ is a bit more your speed.”

Lovett gives a faux aghast look and turns back to the studio, where their host is leaning forward like Jon’s just given her the in she was looking for.

Lovett can take credit for that one, too. Lovett’s an expert at sticking his foot in his mouth for the sake of a bit.

“That would be quite a headline,” their host grants. “But I’ve heard there’s another headline in the papers tomorrow. This is a radio show, so let me describe this photo to our listeners.”

Lovett fidgets. It’s not like he’s kept their whirlwind, caffeine-fueled, necessarily casual string of hookups under a glass dome. It wasn’t pure when Lovett was twenty-five, jerking off to impossible imaginings of his boss, hungover and shirtless on the couch downstairs and it _definitely_ wasn’t pure when Jon had pulled Lovett into a handicap bathroom and dropped to his knees just moments after his name was called on the convention floor.

But, Lovett coming to terms, on a personal level, with the realities of the greatest romance of his life is one thing. Listening to Ms. Blonde from WPTF describe the angle of the camera like it's disappointing, the sun that had flitted across Jon's face like it's salacious, the placement of Lovett's hands like it was a mistake-

It's all almost more than Lovett can bear.

Jon answers gracefully, detached and on message. “It's a breach of my team’s privacy” and “I knew Lovett was gay before I hired him the first time, so, no, I don't have any problems with having a gay head speechwriter.”

“Yes, yes,” their host waves him away. “But what our listeners really want to know, is, what do you say to the rumors that you're the other man in the photo?”

Jon's jaw twitches. “I don't respond to speculations.”

“Sure, yes, of course.” She waves him away for a second time. “Of course not. You have dealt with rumors of this nature throughout your campaign.”

“In this era of digital news and celebrity journalism, there were always going to be rumors about the private life of a very private candidate,” Jon says, from Dan's mouth to the microphone.

She purses her lips, nodding at her producer over Jon's head. “Would you like to end that speculation, then?”

Jon watches her. His foot bounces a little under the table. His bicep twitches where his hands are clasped. He looks like he's meeting her eyes, but his gaze is just a little off.

To anyone who knows him, they'd know exactly what's coming next.

“You're running for president of the United States,” she pushes a little, her chest rising with importance and the scent of breaking news, either way this goes. “The voters have a right to know, is this you in the photo?”

Lovett's chest seizes. Next to him, Tommy's gone stiff, whispering “come on, come on” under his breath. On Tommy's other side, Dan's face is tight and shuttered.

Jon clasps his hands and leans towards the mic. “No.”

It doesn't matter that Jon is so obviously lying that Lovett can't quite see how anyone could believe him. It doesn't matter that they'd planned for this, wanted it, needed the question to issue the denial. It doesn't matter that Lovett's known this was the inevitable conclusion from the very beginning.

It still hurts more than anything has ever hurt.

Lovett takes a deep breath, murmurs “I've got to-”, ignores Tommy's indignant noise and Dan's soft gaze, and slips out the back.

***

“I'm lying about _who I am_ ,” Jon's saying - yelling, really, loud enough to echo through the closed door between the connecting hotel rooms they've turned into Favreau for President emergency HQ - and Lovett flinches. “Of course it didn't sound like I really meant it.”

Dan's voice is lower and Lovett doesn't strain to hear it.

“That's bullshit.” Jon again.

Lovett does hear the crash of what Lovett hopes is a stack of papers and not the nice vase full of sunflowers that the hotel had gifted them when they arrived.

“No, Dan, don't- you know this is bullshit. What happened to 'you're our best asset, Jon'? What happened to 'be your fucking self’ after the Convention, huh?”

The door opens, long enough for Lovett to hear Dan say “you know as well as I do that what works in the Primary-”, and then shuts again. Lovett doesn't have to look up to know that Tommy's standing in front of him.

Lovett crosses his ankles and leans back against his desk. The edge digs into the tops of his thighs. “What do you want?”

Tommy sighs. “Jon.”

Lovett’s been expecting this from the moment Tommy ran into him outside Jon's hotel room door, but it doesn't make his chest feel any less like it's falling apart. He folds his arms in a valiant effort to keep his heart in tact, and looks up just in time to see the twist of Tommy's face, his fair skin mottled and his eyes soft and apologetic.

Over his shoulder, Lovett can see the 'Favreau for America’ Tommy had scribbled on a napkin that first night in a ridiculously expensive new tapas place in WeHo, when it had been just the three of them and an homage to _The West Wing_. A joke that had become a niggle and then an exploratory committee and then, impossibly, a full blown run for fucking president. Unbeknownst to Lovett, Tommy had pocketed the napkin and had it framed the next day, although he hadn't given it to Jon until he'd won Iowa. They hang it up in every hotel room on the trail.

Lovett forces his eyes back to Tommy.

Tommy’s voice is soft. “You know what you have to do.”

Lovett tries to swallow, but his breath sticks in his throat. Every step of his life has been taken to avoid this decision. Lovett's been out, come out, to every person he's met since he was seventeen. He can't- He never wanted- This is exactly what he's always tried to avoid.

“Jon’s going to be an amazing president,” Tommy continues, like he thinks Lovett might protest. Like he hasn’t been working with Lovett for the better part of two decades, like they haven’t been through the highs and lows together, like there are many other people Lovett would be willing to do it all over again with.

There, Lovett thinks viciously, is the spark of anger he’s been looking for since Tommy shoved the photo at him that morning. “You think I don’t know that?”

“Healthcare,” Tommy continues, talking over him, and Lovett can’t honestly be sure that Tommy has even heard him. “Voter’s rights. Immigration reform. All the things we care about-”

“I know,” Lovett yells. Then, as Tommy turns to him, feet scuffing against the rough carpet and his expressive forehead wrinkled and pink, the flame burns out as quickly as it sparked.

“He’s going to make an amazing president,” Tommy repeats.

In the end, it’s the easiest decision Lovett has ever made.

“The best,” Lovett agrees, barely above a whisper.

Tommy sits, gingerly, on the edge of the desk next to him, their shoulder and their thighs and their toes touching. “Lovett-”

“I know.” Lovett’s head feels heavy, too heavy for the weight of his life as it comes crashing down around him. He drops it to Tommy’s shoulder, letting him hold some of the burden, just for a little while.

***

“Is that it?” Jon asks, his back tense under his dress shirt and his hands shoved tight into his pockets.

Lovett doesn't have to look down at the envelope crumpled in his hand to know it's there. He nods, even though Jon can't see it. “Dan and I finished the statement a few minutes ago. It's in your email.”

Jon's back tightens impossibly. “I'm not going to accept it.”

Despite himself, Lovett snorts. “You don't really get a choice in that.”

“I run this campaign,” Jon says, desperately, hopelessly. “Everything is my choice.”

Jon knows how untrue that is, as well as Lovett does. Lovett sighs. “I actually report to Tommy,” he says, as gently as he can. He can't hear himself over the battering of his pulse in his ears, though, so he has to lean on a lifetime of gentleness where Jon's concerned and hope that it comes through. “And he's already accepted, so, this is more a courtesy call than anything else “

Jon's eyes flash in the window, bright and blinding as the early afternoon sun streaming in. “A _courtesy_? We've worked together for two fucking decades and you’re doing me the _courtesy_ of quitting to me face?”

“Not really to your face,” Lovett shrugs, “since you haven't been able to look at me since this morning.”

Jon does turn around then, and Lovett is locked in place, stricken, wishing he hadn't pushed. Because Jon is always devastating, but Jon like this is more than Lovett's ever been able to bare. His eyes are as red and lost as they were when he landed on Lovett's doorstep in LA, months removed from DC and a life that made sense and looking for Lovett to give him meaning again. His shoulders are slumped, the way they were in the moments immediately following the 2016 election, as if his foundations were crumbling and he needed Lovett to hold him up for a little while. His hair is a mess, as if he's been running his fingers through it, the way Lovett had in the moments after Jon had first kissed him, like, maybe, Lovett was the only thing in the world that mattered.

But Lovett can't be Jon's world anymore. No matter how much he wants to slide under Jon's arm, straighten his hair and wipe his eyes dry and provide the kind of steady foundation that Jon's always provided for him, Lovett has to step away. Because, god willing, Jon is about to be elected president and, when the country looks to him to provide its own foundation, they can't find Lovett's shining back at them.

So, Lovett does what he has to do. He takes a step back and, when Jon tries to follow, his fingers warm and shaking on Lovett's wrist, he pulls away. 

“Jon,” Jon says, his voice breaking.

Lovett can’t look at him and he can’t look away. “You already made your decision,” he says, quiet as he can so that his voice doesn’t crack and splinter just as badly, “when you decided to run.”

Jon shakes his head, reaching out again, but pausing inches from Lovett’s arm. “I didn’t. Or, maybe I did. I did kiss you, after all.” He smiles, and it's small and rueful but Lovett doesn't know how he can smile at all.

“You did,” Lovett agrees. “The moment it was an impossibility, you did.”

Jon shakes his head, taking a small step forward. “That's not true.”

“Isn't it?” Lovett shakes his head, shoving his hands into his pockets so that Jon can't reach out again. “You're running for _president_ , Jon. The voters are voting on _you_ , the man you let me see, not- not whoever you are with me, behind closed doors.”

“They're the same people.” Jon's eyes are the softest brown and his voice is so low Lovett can barely hear it over the hum of the air conditioning. “The man the voters know has always been madly in love with you. That hasn't changed.”

Lovett wants to be able to hear that. He wants to pull Jon close, tell him about all the nights Lovett's lain awake over the past fifteen years imagining a declaration half this good. He wants it to matter. But- “Maybe, but, they don't know _me_. They didn't get to decide on _me_.”

Jon shakes his head.

“We didn’t give them the opportunity to,” Lovett finishes, with a shrug.

Jon’s eyes sharpen, his cheeks flushing, stricken. “Lovett.”

“I get it.” Lovett smiles, half soft curves and half barbed edges. “What you're suggesting is akin to a marriage proposal, and that's not something you can do, not now, not this late, not if you don't want every inch of our lives spread in front of a grand jury investigation once it finally comes out.”

Jon freezes. “Just for the record, if I asked, would you say yes?”

“Just for the record?” Lovett feels a desperate laugh bubbling to the surface. “I would have said yes, over and over again, every day of our lives.”

Jon looks away. His eyes are wet in the bright light. He nods, low and slow.

Lovett didn’t expect Jon to ask. He doesn’t expect Jon to drop everything, risk everything, for the possibility of something they can’t be at all sure will last. What matters is the country. What matters is that Jon spends his first hundred days passing voting rights acts and healthcare bills and putting a damn justice on the Supreme Court.

So Lovett takes a step back as he whispers, “I need you to fucking win, Jon.”

Jon glances up, chokes out, “it won’t mean nearly as much if you’re not with me.”

Lovett nods, his own eyes wet as he puts his resignation letter, face up, on the desk. And then he turns on his heels and leaves without looking back.

***

Lovett’s sitting on the floor of the Raleigh-Durham International airport when his phone rings. He untangles the wires and freezes for a moment as he sees Dan’s name, then pulls his knees into his chest as he answers. “I don’t work for you anymore.”

Lovett can picture the tilt of Dan’s eyebrows as he snorts. “Did you ever?”

“Not really.” Lovett picks at the bottom of his sneakers, where the sole’s starting to seperate. The carpet scratches against his knuckles and he grimaces at the grime and dirt. He wishes he hadn’t rushed out of the hotel fast enough that his phone was only on 10% battery, so he didn’t have to huddle around the only socket he could find. But, this isn’t the worst position he’s been in all day.

Dan laughs again and Lovett can hear commotion on his side of the phone. The clank and clatter of the stage being set up for Jon’s UNC speech. The chatter of voices, all rushing at a speed parallel to and diverged from the quiet Lovett’s life took on the moment he got to the airport with three hours to spare before the only flight leaving for LAX that night. 

Lovett sighs and runs his thumb over the microphone, using his nail to approximate some sense of noise and commotion. “What were you calling for? Just, I’m pretty busy here with, ahh, airport stuff. You know?”

“Right, right,” Dan says, absently. “Look, I sent the speech to your gmail.”

Lovett frowns. That doesn’t- His gmail isn’t secure. He’s not Jon’s head speech writer anymore. He’s- Well, he hasn’t really gotten that far yet, but he figures he’ll go back to Crooked, try to carve out a little spot for himself alongside Sarah and Tanya. But, Dan already knows all that, so all he asks is, “why?”

Dan’s voice is distant for a moment as he directs his staff, but he’s insistent when he floats back to Lovett. “I think there’s some things in it that will be interesting to you.”

Lovett sighs. “Not to sound flippant about NARAL or dismissive of Alyssa’s hard work, but, this isn’t my job anymore. I sent her my deputy - my ex-deputy’s - number. She can call her if she needs-”

“Sorry, Lovett, I’ve gotta go,” Dan interrupts. Lovett hears a crash and some yelling in the background. “Check your email.”

Lovett’s phone goes quiet and dark.

Lovett pulls out the personal laptop he’s been dragging around for months, mostly for the limited occasions when they’d get back to the hotel before midnight and he could steal a few short minutes to blow off steam by killing zombies. The Raleigh airport has free wifi and Lovett puts in his credentials with a grimace, thinking about layers of insecurities and lack of firewalls until it finally signs on.

The email is titled _New UNC Speech. Final Draft_.

It’s a forward from Dan’s cell, with nothing in the body, and Lovett downloads the attachment, rueing the wifi as the progress bar inches forward. He’s not sure if Dan’s finally lost it, the grey at his temples seeping into the few brain cells he has left that aren’t solely focused on Jon’s digital communications strategy, and forgotten that he wrote Lovett’s resignation statement just a few hours ago. Or if Dan’s throwing him a bone, extending him the kindness of affecting the last speech of his career, even if that kindness feels more like a gut wound. Or if-

The document finishes downloading and Lovett opens it. He scrolls immediately to the healthcare section and frowns.

There isn’t a healthcare section.

There aren’t any of the sections of the stump speech that Lovett knows so well he recites it in his dreams.

This isn’t a stump speech at all.

Overhead, the speakers crackle. “Flight UA792 to Los Angeles will be boarding shortly. Please check your boarding pass for your boarding number.”

Lovett pockets his ticket, wrenches his charger from the wall, and starts to run.

***

It takes twenty minutes, an argument with a guard who could have Lovett in handcuffs with one hand tied behind his back, and a fortuitous Tommy sighting to get through security.

“Has security increased since I left?” Lovett jokes as the guards reluctantly let him through.

Tommy looks tired, his cheeks flushed and his eyes dark with exhaustion. “Gotta keep the riff raff out,” he meets Lovett, joke for joke. Or, Lovett thinks he jokes.

Lovett drops his voice under the commotion of pre-speech titters and construction all around them. “I didn’t tell him to do this. I didn’t even know he was going to until Dan called me.”

Tommy sighs and slides sideways through a gaggle of their own - of Tommy's - communications staff, huddled around talking quickly and excitedly. Lovett catches snatches of _is he really going to?_ and _how brave_ on equal measure with _how stupid_.

“I was at the airport,” Lovett continues, earnestly. “I resigned, I fell into line.”

Tommy sighs deeper and stops in front of an indistinct white door. He knocks, three times in rapid succession.

“And, fuck, Tommy, I broke up with him,” Lovett presses, “just like you wanted me to.”

Tommy shakes his head. His catches Lovett’s eyes with an icy intensity. “I never wanted that.” His shoulders drop and, suddenly, he sounds as tired as he looks.

“Tommy-”

The door opens and Dan peeks his head out, his face lighting up when he sees Lovett. “Jon’s waiting for you.”

Lovett swallows. Tommy nods at him, the ghost of a real smile on his own face, and then the door’s clicking closed behind him.

Jon’s sitting at a card table, his long legs spread out in front of him. He’s surrounded by papers, scribbled with notes in his handwriting, and the table wobbles every time he presses his elbow down to write.

When he looks up, though, his eyes are clear and his smile is easy. He looks settled, in his grey hair and the extra wrinkles at his temples and the tightness in his bad shoulder. Jon’s always been more comfortable in his skin than Lovett ever will be, but this Jon-

This is the Jon Lovett first met. So exhausted and overworked that he drank a venti latte with three espresso shots during their short 30 minute interview and then ordered more, but so sure of Obama’s right to be president and his own place in that presidency that Lovett had bought into it, hook, line, and sinker.

This is the Jon who took Lovett’s stupid, fear-induced suggestion of “maybe we can doing something with Keepin’ it 1600?” and ran with it. Who believed so strongly that this was their reason for being that he turned their little podcast into a media juggernaut.

This is the Jon who can win. This is the Jon Lovett can picture behind the Resolute desk. This Jon doesn’t need to _seem presidential_ because he already is.

This Jon smiles at Lovett, like he’s already made up his mind, like he made up his mind fourteen months ago and is just now clueing Lovett in. “Hey.”

Lovett shoves his hands into his pockets and nods at the papers. “Quite a speech you’ve written. Seems a little cheap to steal from Obama’s playbook, but-”

“I think he’ll forgive me,” Jon chuckles. He pushes his chair back and crosses the room. His sleeves are already rolled down, the lucky cartoon Uncle Sam cufflinks Andy had given him as a gag gift already in place.

“You don’t have to do this,” Lovett says, because he has to, because everything he’s ever learned about politics is telling him to say it, even though he knows, as well as Jon does, that it’s not true. He amends, “you don’t have to do this for me.”

Jon shakes his head. “I’m not.” He takes a step closer. “You were right, I’ve been lying to the American people. They need to have all the facts before I can ask them to vote for me.”

Lovett swallows. He’s so used to talking - on a stage, into a mic, at staffers who know to discard half of what he tells them - and he needs to stop forgetting that Jon really _listens_ to him. “This isn’t what I meant.”

“Yeah it was.” Jon smiles ruefully. “You’ve been saying it my entire campaign.”

Lovett frowns. “No I haven’t.”

“Not out loud, but-” Jon shrugs. “You had every right to judge me. I was hiding the biggest part of me and that’s not fair to the voters and it’s not fair to me and,” Jon takes a step closer, “it wasn’t fair to you.”

Lovett shakes his head against Jon’s warmth, the smell of his cologne, the stupid hair gel he still insists on over-using. “I judge everyone,” he admits, because he didn’t mean to, but, maybe he did blame Jon for all the nights he’d snuck into Jon’s room long after even Dan was asleep and all the morning he’d left before even Tommy was awake. For all the times he’d shoved himself back into the closet he’d so forcefully left almost thirty years ago. “I’m a very judgemental person. You shouldn’t sink your campaign over it.”

“I’m not.” 

It’s certain and smooth and- Yeah, there he is, the Jon Lovett knows will win, even before he says it. 

Jon shrugs easily. “And when I win, it’s going to be me, all of me.”

“You can’t.” Lovett breathes, whispy and broken. “I can’t let you do this.”

“You don’t really get a choice.” Jon cocks his head, still, impossibly, smiling. “I’m doing this, with or without you.”

Lovett shakes his head. His eyes feel wet and he blinks furiously. “Jon.”

“But I’d really rather do it with you.” Jon reaches out, his fingers wrapping around Lovett’s wrist and tugging. Lovett’s hand falls out of his pocket and he looks down to watch Jon twist their fingers together.

Lovett’s throat is so dry. He wets his lips. “I already resigned.”

Jon’s eyes are trained on his mouth as he shrugs. “I think I’ve got a better job in mind. How does First Gentleman sound?”

Lovett closes his eyes. “Jon.”

“I am so in love you.” Lovett can hear Jon’s smile. “You make me a man fitting to be president and, I wasn’t lying, I will do this without you, but, I won’t deserve it unless you’re with me.”

“Jon,” Lovett whispers, but he doesn’t have any more words. He pulls at Jon’s hand, raising his head and hoping that Jon can hear everything he needs to in Lovett’s kiss.

Jon grins into his mouth and, when he pulls back, his breath is still smooth in Lovett’s ear when Lovett feels like he’s just run a half-marathon. “That’s a yes?”

Lovett laughs, desperate and wet. “Fuck. I can’t believe I’m- Yes, Jon, of course it’s a yes.”

Jon grins and kisses him again and doesn’t pull back until there’s a knock on the door.

“Not to interrupt this touching moment,” Tommy’s voice filters over their heads, tinged with laughter, “but you have to be on stage in five minutes.”

Jon laughs and pulls away. He doesn’t look away from Lovett as he says, “Lovett has to be on stage in a few, too. Can someone get him something a little more, ahh, presidential?”

“What happened to take me as I am?” Lovett asks, glancing down at his decades-old sweats and a shirt he’s almost sure he stole out of Jon’s dog walking pile.

“I hate my job,” Tommy sighs, long suffering. “I’ll get wardrobe on it.”

“Thanks.” Jon grins. “We’ll be out in a minute.”

Tommy groans, “two minutes, I’m serious,” and the door clicks shut.

“I take it back,” Jon laughs, his hand tightening in Lovett’s. “The voters may never even get to vote for me, Tommy might kill me first.”

Lovett laughs. “He’ll get over it.” He kisses Jon, quickly, then drops back onto his heels. “Ready?”

“To come out to the American public?” Jon asks.

Lovett smiles. “It really is a beautiful speech,” he promises. “Although I do have a few notes.”

Jon laughs, his head thrown back and his neck long and tan and still so beautiful after all these months on the trail. “Of course you do.” He tips forward and kisses him. “I love you.”

“You too,” Lovett whispers against his mouth, then pulls away. “The speech?”

Jon laughs and pulls him over to the table. Lovett grabs for Jon’s pen, reaching for the second page and already starting to cross out Jon’s sentence.

He feels Jon settle beside him, his knee brushing Lovett’s shoulder. “Yeah,” he says softly, “I’m ready.”

Lovett looks up, at Jon’s flag pin, at his off-kilter tie, at his self-satisfied smirk. “Yeah,” Lovett grins, “I am, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos, as always, appreciated! And come find me on [tumblr](https://stainyourhands.tumblr.com/) if you wanna chat about these boys!


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